Assurance
by peppermintyrose
Summary: Sookie contemplates how she feels about Bill. Reflective work. One shot.


_Disclaimer: All of the following is thoughtfully rearranged from the original works of Charlaine Harris. So I cannot scream MINE._

* * *

This is set pre-DITF - which is a couple of days away - trying desperately to get all of the fics I've been procrastinating on out before release of the new book so I can read and savour it. _Dead in the Family_ may contain additional information, but my goal here is pretty specific. This is for **Brooklyn Cali** – who asked why CH doesn't hate Bill. Well, let's see him through Sookie's eyes and through the prism of the vampire world. :D

Now, let me say first – I'm team Eric all the way. But that doesn't mean I have to hate Bill, or fail to see his side of things. Demonising or ignoring that doesn't make Eric's case better. For my own self, I want to kick Bill square in the nuts for bringing Selah into Merlotte's. Of all the things he did, that one was of his own free and conscious will, with calculation as his own carefully calculated decision, _for months _and he chose a social superior to flaunt in front of his _telepathic_ ex-girlfriend, while using the woman he was _fucking _as a tool to get his old girlfriend back. It was just plain nasty to both Sookie _and _Selah.

But much of the things complained about as "Bill's sins" aren't complained about by Sookie. I hope I've given enough prompts from the text in my writing to show what hurt Sookie, and why it hurt her. She states it quite plainly - to me at least - what her problems are with Bill.

* * *

Bill was still recovering from silver poison. He'd gotten that poisoning for my sake. Finally, I felt like we were square, that I knew Bill's regard for me – how highly he valued me, and on that night, I saw past all the lies, all the hurts, to the man I once loved, and for a moment, I loved him again. It was a long and torturous road for us to come to the place that we were in now, and despite the pain, I felt at peace.

.*° o O 0 * 0 O o °*.

When I first met Bill, it seemed to be a blessing. Here was a vampire, who fascinated me from the first time I saw him. He glowed in my eyes, in more ways than one. From the very first, I'd always felt so very outside of humans, on the outside, alone, looking in. Suddenly, I wasn't alone. Oh it had its price, but that price was one I thought was obvious, and I was more than willing to pay it.

I was wrong about the price that I'd have to pay, and as it turned out over time, the relationship I thought I had wasn't the one I actually had. There was a long time there where I hated Bill. Where everything we had together was like poison to my heart. With a little time, and effort on Bill's part, I feel better, and can look back at what we had with some fondness. Bill gave me things I hadn't had before.

Before I met Bill and his silent mind, I felt completely alone, and looked to a future stretching ahead of me filled with the voices of others until I died. In Bill, I found a kindred spirit – someone who felt the same things as I did. The separation from humanity that I felt so keenly, Bill did as well. Now to be sure, there was more reason for Bill to feel that way, but until he moved back to Bon Temps, I had not one hint that there was anything I had in common with anyone else in town.

We had so much in common in the ways we felt in human society. I always found it a strain, and could _hear _the fear and judgement from those around me. In Bill, I found someone who felt those same things. Bill told me that he found my presence calming and that he didn't need to glamour me to hold a conversation. I felt the camaraderie that we had with each other, both different from the rest of the town surrounding us. For once, there was someone who I could talk to about my telepathy without them trying to minimise it, change what it was. What Bill gave me was a feeling of acceptance and an open acknowledgement of my difference.

Apart from his silent brain, that was one of the most relaxing things about Bill. That I could be myself, not have to hold up and act like I was normal. In combination with his silent brain, I could truly relax, let go, and ironically feel more human than I ever had before. I didn't have to strain to separate the separate thoughts. I didn't have to worry about fudging the conversation and keeping the details straight in my head, between what the person was thinking, and what the person was saying.

Before Bill, there was no one who talked about it to me. No one could show me fellow feeling. Sure, I found out later that Sam had the same issues. But I'd been alone and lonely in his company for five years feeling like an outcast. At least part of me resented him for that. I didn't hate Sam, but he knew there was a whole wide world of the supernatural out there, and it wasn't until Bill showed up that Sam made a move to tell me about it. I get the fear, but I'd felt left out of everything for a long time - the sole freak, with a curse, and no one else like them. The rejection stung me more times than I can count.

When vampires came out in the Great Revelation, it was an absolutely wonderful feeling. There was one group of creatures who were not the norm - were not human, or not completely human. I was no longer alone in the world, feeling like I was an anomaly. When Bill arrived in town, it was like a godsend. I couldn't have been more excited, and I was pleased that we seemed to strike up a connection. Bill didn't endeavour to blend in, and we hit it off immediately.

Of course, I found out later that a part of that was his blood. I saw him as more human because he'd given me blood. It was only when I was in that hallway, with Andre forcing Eric and I to form a bond that I realised that. But even before that, Bill captured my attention just by what he was, and what we had in common. The fact that I couldn't hear him, that I could relax with Bill was worth all the scares I had in those initial days.

While I'm thankful that I didn't die, more than grateful, Bill spent a lot of time giving a lot of mixed signals on the whole human-vampire argy bargy. It was one of the things we fought about the most. Bill took some pains to press upon me that there was a lot of human left in him, but then when the situation called for something else, Bill was always behind the vampire line that he gave me. Of course, it wasn't until much later, after everything went sour, that I really started to question him.

We spent a lot of time acting like any other human couple. We went to see movies together, we spent time at home playing board games, he came to my work to pick me up and deal with mundane issues. We went to see vampire bands, we reminisced about our childhoods, and finally, we had a _lot _of sex. Almost every night we had sex – so much in fact, that in the early stages of our relationship, I became anaemic. I ended up asking Bill not to bite me every night, but give me time to recover.

Bill was my first. Yes, I was a virgin when I met Bill, but it wasn't something I held onto because I thought it was important to be in love with the person I had sex with. Bill and I weren't in love when we first had sex – I'd even thought to myself that he could help me with a little issue I had. I'd 'heard' so much about sex, and I'd always been denied the pleasure, because I couldn't relax. I did consider JB, but I couldn't cross that barrier. There's just no building up a head of steam when you can hear thoughts, and as slow as JB's were, they still existed.

That is, until Bill turned up. Bill introduced me to the carnal delights, and I was more than happy. Something I thought I'd never have, until a vampire moved into town. I initiated it all, of course. One of the reasons I don't hate Bill for being the first man to bed me is that I was the one who kissed him first. I was the one who neglected to tell him what my 'little problem' was. Truthfully and honestly, I'm glad that I had someone who was good, and that I could finally feel like I'd have a little piece of what others around me had all the time.

But I wasn't in love with Bill at the time we started up together. I didn't sleep with him at the culmination of our love for each other. It was a little bit later that I came to love Bill. I didn't sleep with him that first time because I was truly in love with him, or something like that. Other girls have the ability to wait, and bestow it on the giant pool of men available. I didn't. I had limited choices. I wouldn't be with a vampire if I didn't need to - I would have been happy with an ordinary life with ordinary men. I would have been happy to settle down with one human man, and have a whole bunch of children, and live a happy, normal life.

After all, Bill was the first man that I met at the age of 26, who I thought would make an actually possible bed partner. I didn't need to worry about what he thought about my body or my skills. I could just be with him. I'd been tempted to have sex with JB, just because I didn't know that I'd ever had what came to so many effortlessly. Bill was my first real glimpse of something I thought I'd always be denied. Then, he was a godsend, because really, it wouldn't be something I'd have to try to muddle through or something where I'd have to keep my shields up. It was that I could relax and truly enjoy myself. Thankfully, Bill never disappointed in that department. Touching him didn't bring all his thoughts slamming into my head, and Bill had skill that he had accumulated over the years.

I never regretted having sex with Bill, and hadn't expected it to blossom into a full blown love relationship. That it did, that was always my problem.

.*° o O 0 * 0 O o °*.

The first blow to that love came when Bill left me to go to "Seattle". I knew from the moment he kissed me goodbye that he was lying to me. I knew it, and I didn't say anything. What would be the point in calling him on his lie – he'd just lie to me some more. I clung to the fact that he'd be back, and let him think I believed that lie. I could make a decision later on whether or not it would work between us.

When Pam came and told me that there was bad news, I could only feel the sting of not being good enough to share things with. I felt that my life somehow wasn't worth it, for Bill, who had forever. What really struck hard was that here was a man I wanted, and I wasn't good enough. Six months and he was ready to leave. Unlike the other people I'd loved, he'd left me voluntarily. My Gran, my parents, they hadn't abandoned me. But Bill had lied to me in order to ditch me. I felt so totally alone.

On top of that, he'd lied to me to leave. He couldn't even tell me to my face. Oh, no. He had to pay me off like I was his whore. What's worse is that he did it with a vampire who was his boss - he'd left that money to pay me off - like it was a business arrangement. If I took that money – that would make me a whore. Bill just hadn't ever listened to me. He'd tried to give me an open account at a store before. Nothing says "whore" like going into a store and buying things on your boyfriend's credit card, and in a small town like this one, everyone would hear about it.

It's nice to think that that was compensation, but I had to live in this town, where everyone talked. They gossiped with each other about everything. If they didn't talk, I could hear it directly from their heads. Bad enough to be dating a vampire, the stuff I had to hear about that. To then be thought that not only was I of poor enough judgement to date one, I was a whore for one. No thank you. My reputation was pretty poor as it was, before Bill turned up. No amount of money would take away the sting from those words, those thoughts.

When I found out from Eric that he'd left me for another woman, the insult was immeasurably bigger. A week with her, and he wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. Not me. I wouldn't be around for eternity. She would be. But still, he preferred her to me. That cut me deeply. It wasn't what he was doing with her that bothered me - it was the clear indication that he willingly left me to go and see her and when he was in her presence, in Eric's words, he became "enthralled" with her all over again. That was surely a kick in the teeth.

After I retrieved Bill, I was trapped in a trunk with him. Debbie Pelt had made sure I was put into that situation, and she did it to hurt me. And hurt I was. I didn't want to talk to him about that. At all. _Ever._ I didn't want to have him bring it up either. Thank goodness he took his lead from me. I was just thankful that he didn't initiate anything with me – he took his cues from me. And I truly believed that had he been in his right mind, he would never have done it.

I didn't want to talk with him about it. In a real way, Bill had violated me. I didn't _want_ to share some more of my vulnerabilities with him. It wasn't his place to talk about that, or mention it at all. He'd been the one who was doing it, but not the one _it was done to. _What would he have done – bully me some more to deal with it in the way _he _saw fit? That would have been crueller, as he would have been in his right mind then, exploring _my _trauma, as if it was _his._

Not to mention, that anything he could have said would have been inadequate. What could he say? "I'm sorry I raped you" just didn't cut it. "I wish that hadn't happened"? Well so do I, but that seems awfully disconnected from those moments of fear and terror. Nothing Bill could say could make it better. Nothing I could do could make it better. So I ignored it, and Bill took my lead, and didn't touch me again without permission. He was gentle with me, and didn't force himself on me in any way. I think that showed how sorry he was.

When we finally sat down and had a talk about the situation with Lorena, even though I knew he had to do his maker's bidding, it didn't work out well. Bill might have had to do her bidding when he got to her, but he didn't have to lie to me, make decisions for me. We'd had fights over him making decisions for me before, trying to control everything. That was the final straw. He didn't lie to me because his maker compelled him. He lied because he thought he could keep it from me. It looked like to me that he thought if he left me – after Lorena threatened to harm me – not because she compelled him, he'd be able to return and I would be none the wiser. No matter what she'd compelled him to do, that was cheating in my book, especially since he'd said he'd "heard" of her doings.

Yeah. I knew what that meant. He'd been keeping tabs on Lorena, because no matter what, he still wasn't over her. Well he could get over both of us. Bill thought he could have his cake and eat it too. The plain fact of the matter was that he couldn't. And now he had neither of us.

.*° o O 0 * 0 O o °*.

One of the first things I had loved, and still loved about Bill was his silence. He didn't try to fill the empty spaces in a conversation with chatter. I could sit in silence with him for hours. When I was trying to work something through, Bill let me do it in my own time. When I was trying to figure out how Gladiola got into my woods, Bill didn't push the conversation. He let me come to my own conclusions, without rush.

Of course, that was the double edged sword of our relationship. Bill could keep silent when it didn't matter, but more importantly when it mattered. He kept silent about his purpose in Bon Temps. That was one of the most hurtful things of my life – that mission. I understood Bill's position, from a dispassionate viewpoint, which was something other than mine. He'd been forced by the Queen to come and check out my talent – to find out by whatever method necessary what I could do, to gain my trust. Oh, I have no illusions that any other vampire would have done it differently. That's just crazy talk. But still, the cool and calculated way it seemed to me that he executed the plan just broke my heart.

Now, Sophie Ann was the orchestrator of that scheme. She was the one who decided that she should try to gain my co-operation through loyalty and her twisted empty idea of love. Considering her past, and how closed off and cold she was, I'm sure that she didn't see any problem with what she was doing. That bone that exists in people that lets them feel compassion and empathy was burned out of her while she was still a child, when she was used so horribly until she became all about survival, and made bargains with her life and the lives of others.

She sent Bill in the misguided belief that she would be able to gain my loyalty. Maybe if I was a different kind of woman, it would have worked. If I wasn't young, fresh and naïve, then it would have been something I could have shrugged off. That I felt alone was something she thought she could prey on. She'd heard from Hadley all about how lonely it must be to be me. It only doesn't feel lonely if you know the person wants you for _you_, not your abilities. Bill didn't have any choice in whether he would accept the mission though – just in how he executed it.

I have no illusions – there's lots of forcing around vampires, and vampires were nothing if not loyal to each other. Pam herself told me that while she and Eric didn't know of the plot, despite being my friends (if you could call either of them friendly at the time) they wouldn't have told me. No other vampire would have revealed the plan to me. Not Eric, not Pam - I knew better than to believe that fairytale. Bill did things no differently to any other vampire by keeping the mission a secret.

Now, I know that Pam said that she wouldn't have told me, that night outside Merlotte's – that the reason was "Vampires First". She was unapologetic about it. Pam didn't try to lie to me in a clear falsehood and make out that it was Bill who was the total bad guy. She made it clear that Bill felt especially bad about it, and guilty for what had happened. In true form, she implied that I was messing up a lot of vampires in the area - like it was my fault that they cared. That Pam.

I can't imagine it being any different with Eric. Eric knew before Bill arrived at the hospital that there was a mission, and he said not one word. He waited until Bill came, and had Bill tell me. Technically then, it wasn't Eric spilling the beans on the mission, but Bill. Eric didn't do that to spare my feelings, or to not be the one to inflict pain on me. If that had been his concern, I'm sure he wouldn't have done it so shabbily. If he wanted Bill to hurt me, rather than himself, well, he just wouldn't have rubbed it in my face that night he followed Pam to Merlotte's, telling me that I didn't know anything Quinn, just as I hadn't known anything about Bill either. No, even Eric knew not to go against the Queen's wishes.

Waldo, the vampire who murdered Hadley had gone against the Queen's wishes, had displeased her in some manner. The Queen had immersed him in brine. When he killed Hadley, she had him killed. The Queen wasn't someone that you crossed easily. She was Eric's boss, and if Eric was scary, she was doubly so. Sophie Ann was officially tougher than Eric, meaner and more ambitious than Eric. Eric didn't seem completely unconcerned with the idea that the Queen would punish him over losing Bill, so I can't see that he would be careless when it came to telling me of a mission.

So Bill really didn't act any differently to any other vampire in that same situation. I took small comfort in the fact that it was the nature of vampire loyalty and the "Vampires First" policy that made Bill lie to me, to my face, for so long. It wasn't personal. It was just how things went with humans. The point was not to make me aware I was being manipulated, but to make me feel safe and useful.

It struck me too, that Bill sure did spend a lot of time training me to _be_ useful to the Queen. I find it hard to resent him for that. Whatever else his agenda had been, I gained a lot of control over my telepathy thanks to Bill. He trained me to be able to read people with less effort, less forced participation, and of course, the vampire blood didn't hurt. Thanks to Bill, I was able to live a little better than I had before, even if it was ultimately supposed to be for the Queen's benefit, rather than my own.

Of course, the Queen's plan would have meant something bad for me. But what could Bill have done? You are given a mission – Bill spoke of being ordered. He wasn't given a choice. Bill didn't choose me out of some personal malice – he was given orders, orders that I doubt he could have refused. Even when he did tell me that there was a mission, it didn't stop the Queen using me and forcing me into going to the Vampire Summit at Rhodes. She didn't call it "game over" because I knew - she was just more blunt about it.

I didn't torture myself that it could have gone any differently, that if another vampire were sent in his stead, that they would have been honest about it. I didn't torture myself that it was anyone but the Queen who had set the plan up in the first place. It didn't escape my notice that while I felt bad for the treatment she'd endured before she was turned, Sophie Ann felt nothing but disconnection. I don't think she meant to hurt me - she was just missing quite a bit of empathy there. Not to mention, she loved Andre, and that to me, said a lot about her.

What I did hate about the plan was that Bill went so thoroughly with it, as first it seemed. The Queen had told him to return to his human home, put himself into my path, to harness the gift for her own use, to seduce me if he had to. That was the part that gave me the most trouble out of everything, and the thing that hurt the most. That was the bit that hurt me deeply - that he felt the need to play me for such a thorough fool.

I'd told him that I was a telepath. I'd shown that I was willing to use my telepathy to help my brother. If the Queen was looking to harness my gift, she would have found a willing participant. I made a beneficial deal with Eric, and I stuck to it, helping him out as long as he agreed to my terms to turn wrongdoers revealed by my telepathy over to the police. What hurt the most was not that I was tricked into service for the Queen; it was that he felt the need to do that by lying to me about a romantic relationship. It really didn't need seduction for all that. It didn't mean he needed to lie to me that he loved me.

At the time that it happened, at the time Bill confessed to me, I felt that I had nothing. My life had been built on the foundation that one man loved and desired _me_, had sought _me_ out, and had regarded _me _as a prize. What crashed down on me that night was that my affections were nothing to Bill.

I had been made a fool by love – just when I was secure that I had it. Before Bill came to town, few men wanted me, loved me, or were interested in something other than my body. For the first time ever, a man showed that it wasn't my body he wanted, to shun me in front of the town, to denigrate me in his head, but me, all of me, the me that didn't fit anywhere. The person inside, that I feared would lead me to die alone and lonely.

In his pursuit of me, it felt like Bill had gone above and beyond – not for me, but for the Queen. He'd been interested in tales of my childhood, which he compared with his own childhood. So much that we had in common; that I thought gave us common ground, despite the vampire issues. Bill grew up in this area, he knew the feel of the place, and he shared so many reminiscences with me. Bill had me thoroughly convinced that it was a genuine connection that we had with each other, rather than a carefully executed plan that didn't mean what I thought it meant.

It felt like Bill had determined to carry through the Queen's plan in a very calculated and ruthless way. He didn't need to do those things. He didn't need to lie to me, give me hope that I mattered, that someone cared. Bill could have gotten me to co-operate with vampires just by asking me to. There didn't need to be a great deal of trickery going on. I didn't need to be lied to, to have everything built on nothing real, just so I would do as he wished. He shouldn't have done it because he knew that the plans would be revealed some day. He didn't need to do it because I was young and naïve already. I would have helped. I liked the work I did for them.

If Bill had found out what I could do, and then convinced me as a friend to work for vampires, even without telling me of the plan – that wouldn't have hurt half as much. It was the idea that he lied to me about loving me. He planned and orchestrated out the plan so that the Queen could have what she wanted. That it was never about me, but my telepathy, that the thing that made me different was what he valued - he knew that from the first night I protested, beside my car speaking about Maudette and Dawn's deaths, I didn't want to be separated out from the herd for my talents. Bill had ignored me.

I knew most of the time that I meant little in the vampire world. My telepathy was desirable – but not me. Vampires seemed to think it was a bit of a pity that the telepathy came with a human – one who wouldn't be easily controlled. That's what had Andre trying to force me into the bond, to control me. But then to have Bill try to control me with a relationship, that was intolerable. That to him, I was worthy of believing someone loved me because of my telepathy was the most hurtful thing ever done to me.

I hated Bill for that – I truly did. Even worse that he thought he could offer me more empty words of love for what had been a plan of the Queen's. He even had the gall to tell me that I wouldn't understand when he told me of the mission. Always, Bill treated me like a child who had to have vital facts about her life kept from her. A child who had to be lied to in order not to get hurt. He hurt me alright - and it was with his lies. First a maker that I wouldn't understand, and then that I wouldn't understand the Queen's desire for a telepath and his mission in acquiring me.

I sure seemed to understand Eric's desire for me that night at Fangtasia, when he summoned us. When Bill could do nothing, I bargained my own terms. Bill treated me like a fool and a child when he told me I wouldn't understand. Bill was the fool. I understood _all my life_ that my skills could make me valuable to people who would use me. People had been using me for my skills long before Bill came along, and they continued long after he left. They always had, when it was convenient to them. That's what people did. They used me for what they needed, and I knew they did because I heard them working it through in their heads. It just so happened that I couldn't read it from a vampire, so I didn't know until it was revealed to me personally.

.*° o O 0 * 0 O o °*.

I tried to look back on our relationship, to determine if Bill really did love me, if he cared at all about me. If I was just a mission to him, or if, as he had told me, there was something in it. That he genuinely loved me. Bill assured me that he did, but after all, Bill was clearly a fantastic liar. I couldn't really judge him by the same standards I used with him before. I couldn't look at what he said, because Bill lied.

It's true that he initiated contact that night at the bar. He approached me, but he was fairly lukewarm for a while. It was I who first kissed him – made the first overture at all. Maybe he never really wanted me at all – not at first. It certainly put into perspective that first night at Fangtasia. That night Bill tried to pass me off to other vampires – Eric being one. He asked me if I wanted to go with them, instead of being there with him. It seems that he wasn't too invested in being there with me. Maybe Bill had been wanting to palm me off on another vampire, but got stuck with me, the mission.

Now, maybe that night changed his mind. He stared at me for an awfully long time when he realised that I wanted to protect him. But maybe it didn't. Maybe he thought that if he couldn't give me willingly to another vampire, he'd be stuck with the mission and just resigned himself. This was the limbo that Bill left me in. Trying to tease out the strands of the relationship from the mission was an impossible task. I couldn't believe Bill about when it started. I'd been genuine with him - for the first time ever in my life - and he couldn't prove he'd been genuine with me.

What Bill left me with, after I considered everything, was the profound feeling that maybe it was all a trick. After all, he took Portia out with him. He never took me to the opera, or any place fancy. Until he killed some people, he didn't even bother to buy me any gifts. An expense account is not a gift – and requires no effort or thought on the behalf of the person who sets up the account. For a long time I was unsure exactly how valuable I was to Bill. After he broke up with me, he took up with Selah. I hated her guts, but certainly, Bill treated her in the same manner as he did me – almost like a local fangbanger. Never too much effort, but seeing her regularly for feeding…and other things. I was even more unsure of his regard due to the fact that I had fairy blood. I couldn't be sure that Bill didn't see me as convenient and tasty. He tried over and over to prove that he valued me – but it rang hollow, since I could never be sure of what his motives were.

The fairy war brought me something I needed from Bill. That moment when he decided that my life was worth more than his, when he was poisoned by silver for me, when he stood in front of me prepared to meet his death. That moment meant that it wasn't all show, wasn't all lies. For all the bad stuff that happened between now and when I first met him, it wasn't for show. Bill had talked a good game, but that moment when he was willing to sacrifice himself for me, that showed me that whatever we had wasn't all just a trick.

Bill paid a heavy, heavy price to protect me. It was one that showed me that he wasn't just fooling me that he wasn't intending to pull the wool over my eyes, lying to the foolish young girl to gain her loyalty to vampires. He showed me that I mattered to him, even if I wasn't with him. Bill didn't stand in front of me because it might be a chance to get back into bed with me, or to have me finally swallow that he loved me. No, he did it merely because he valued me.

For that second, ignoring all the other things, I could see the man that I had first loved. The man, who was genuine in his affection for me, and the one who cared for me genuinely and for once, he truly showed me that it wasn't all lies to sucker me in; it wasn't just empty words that he spouted. Bill cared for me. I could finally feel at peace with what we'd had, for the first time in a long time. It wasn't just the mission, it wasn't just his gain - there was something more there.

It didn't make us even – we would never be even. But it made all the things that had passed between us seem real, to have meaning. I still doubted that Bill had ever really loved me – when Niall told me that the vampire loved me, I still didn't know if I considered what Bill felt for me as love. But I finally had assurance that Bill cared.


End file.
